Zanesville High School, John McIntire robotics teams headed to World championship

ZANESVILLE — Zanesville High School freshman Steven Morrison has his own way of describing robotics.

"It's a lifestyle," he said.

Steven is one of four members on the high school's robotics team, which also includes Chloe Buchanan, Dhruv Patel, Caiden Balsey and Karter Bludnick.

This year's team, all freshmen, have been together since fifth grade when they joined the elementary school team. Now the students are headed to Dallas to compete at the the VEX Robotics World Championship.

They are joined by the John McIntire Elementary team. Members Mason Smith, Noah Zoirne, Jack Crook, Subh Patel and Ethan Morrison also made it past the state round this year to qualify for the highly-competitive tournament..

This is the fifth time a Zanesville HIgh School team has gone to Worlds since the program started.

The high-schoolers weren't too sure what robotics actually was before signing on in in elementary school, but the hobby grew into an ambition that's brought them to Worlds twice as a team.

"It's just a part of life," Chloe said.

Contrary to popular belief, the purpose of the game is not to knock each over; it's not "battle bots."

The goal is to score as much as possible in a multi-step approach. The first 15 seconds of each match involves programming the robot. From there, they try to get rings on the goals, pick up the goal and put it on top of a board, and also get the robot on top of the board.

They work two-on-two with another assigned team at each tournament. At the beginning of the day, they'll get the schedule and meet with the other group to make a game plan.

"I thought, man, this sounds like something cool that would make me seem really smart," he joked. "But as I've done it, it's grown on me," Morrison said.

Karter likes to drive the robots. Dhruv's teammates describe him as a talented programmer and builder.

Team members will leave for Texas today, and competition will start Thursday.

The John McIntire team, comprised all of sixth-graders, received the highest skill score at the state competition.

It means a lot to Coach Rick Mohler, who coaches both teams, for the students to represent their hometown. He noted that Ohio schools have very competitive robotics teams.

Mohler said around 80% of the students who graduate out of the Zanesville robotics program have gone onto college in some type of STEM field.

"As seniors graduate, the makeup and dynamic kind of changes. (The high school team) has been together since the fifth grade, and they haven't had to change a thing," he said. "They've qualified for Worlds at every level they've been in, which not many people can say."

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This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Zanesville teams qualify for VEX Robotics World Championship